


Horizon

by cuubism



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Vulnerability, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Minor Character Death, Post-Canon, Rafael Lightwood-Bane (mentioned) - Freeform, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, loss of a child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:40:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26818234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuubism/pseuds/cuubism
Summary: “I’m not going to stop you,” Alec says. “I want to be here to pick you up after.”Magnus’s hands twist in the sweater he has clutched to his chest.He says, “There’s no after.”
Relationships: Alec Lightwood & Rafael Lightwood-Bane, Magnus Bane & Rafael Lightwood-Bane, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 41
Kudos: 113
Collections: Fluff vs. Angst Battle 2020





	Horizon

**Author's Note:**

> heads up this is pretty heavy. pls read the tags

Alec almost doesn’t expect to find him, but find him he does, in Pandemonium like the first moment they’d seen each other. Magnus has kept the place all these years, loosely managed, changed from how it was but still maintaining that same sort of feeling to it. Energy, and power, and loss.

The lights are off, daylight trickling in past the curtains but still leaving most of the club in shadow. Magnus is slumped behind the bar, sitting on the floor, bottle of whiskey in hand that looks about three-quarters drunk. It’s good stuff too, Alec knows enough by now to recognize that, but Magnus isn’t here to appreciate it. He’s staring off into space, makeup smudged, body sprawled out and graceless.

Alec sits on the floor across from him and places a hand on his calf.

Magnus barely moves, doesn’t even look at him. “You don’t have to be here.” His voice is scratchy, worn through from screaming.

“Stop that.” Alec can’t make himself speak at much louder than a murmur, he tightens his grip on Magnus’s leg.

“I’m serious.” Magnus looks at the bottle of liquor in his hand. “I’m well on my way to destroying myself, you don’t have to witness it.”

“I’m not going to stop you,” Alec says, causing Magnus to look up at him in surprise. Alec will stop him, he supposes, if Magnus seems in real danger of seriously hurting himself, but otherwise he isn’t going to interfere. He _gets_ it. “I want to be here to pick you up after.”

Magnus drops the bottle. It lands on its side, whiskey sloshing out onto the floor, but he doesn’t right it. His hands twist in the sweater he has clutched to his chest.

Rafe’s sweater.

He says, “There’s no after.”

Alec doesn’t know how to breathe around that, and doesn’t try. He slides his hand up Magnus’s leg to brace on his knee. Magnus releases his death grip on the sweater to reach out and take Alec’s hand.

“Still,” Alec says, “I want to be here.”

Magnus takes him in. His eyes are glamoured and dark, rimmed red, but no less perceptive than ever. He shifts closer, reaches up to touch Alec’s face, caress his cheek.

Alec tries to swallow, but it gets stuck. He thinks his hands are shaking. The air is very tenuous around them, weighty and wet, hovering on the verge of catastrophe. He feels as though they’ve camped out at the base of a sea cliff and are just waiting for the tide to bury them.

Magnus’s hand slides around to the back of his neck and he pulls Alec into his chest. Alec tucks his face into the juncture of Magnus’s neck and shoulder, trying to breathe. Failing.

“Shhhh,” Magnus soothes, but he can’t quite manage it, the sound hitching over the unsteadiness of his breath. “Shhhh.”

Normally Alec would tell him it’s going to be okay. But Magnus is right. He can’t see an after. He feels like his chest is being crushed.

Magnus runs his hands through his hair. His rings catch in Alec’s curls, tugging at them. The pain is a welcome distraction. Alec reaches between them to pick up the sweater, holding it in his hands.

“That sweater is useless,” Magnus bites, stilling for a moment. Alec can’t help but agree.

Still, Magnus’s hands fall back to his lap, twitching restlessly.

“You want it back?”

_“Please.”_

Alec gives it to him, and Magnus immediately pulls it back to his chest, folding himself in half over it, letting out a quiet sort of keen. Alec pulls him back in, pulls him close, crushes him. There’s a gaping void in them, a starving darkness, and he thinks maybe, if they can crush close enough together, become small enough, they can prevent it from engulfing them.

A futile and desperate thought. It’s impossible to hold off the waves.

It’s all Alec can do to remember he still has a body, still has hands. Can use them to tread water. Can use them to press warmth back into Magnus’s shivering form.

All else is lost to the dark quiet of the club, and the trembling of everything they’ve built.

*

There is, in fact, an after.

Magnus finds it in the soft morning light of the loft, in the smell of abandoned coffee recently brewed in the kitchen. He feels like he’s been sort of dissociated, and is just coming back to his body. It’s not a welcome return.

Alec, still dressed in white, is leaning on the balcony railing, looking out. Every part of him is still, the way that he sometimes is when nothing can be accomplished by moving.

Magnus steps carefully over to him.

He feels deathly quiet himself, held together with tape and shallow breaths. The weak morning sun could burn him. He steps into it anyway.

“Alexander.”

Alec flinches. His grip tightens on the railing. But when he speaks, his voice is steady. “Are you okay?”

Magnus lays a cautious hand on his lower back. “I’m trying to ask that of you, darling.”

Alec swallows. Magnus watches the bobbing of his throat. “As well as can be expected.”

Very slowly, Magnus takes his hand and pries it off the railing. It lies limp in his grasp, in contrast to the previous death grip. “Come inside and have some coffee.”

Alec wordlessly lets Magnus pull him to the kitchen. When they get there, he stares at the fresh pot of coffee, still steaming.

“Who made that?”

“Max. He said he’d be back in a bit. He needed a moment, I think.” Magnus pulls two mugs down from the cabinet and starts pouring. His hands shake. He takes a long breath in. Out. They still.

“I didn’t realize he’d left,” says Alec.

“I know. He’ll be back soon.” Magnus pushes a mug forward across the counter until it hits Alec’s hands. “Drink this.”

Alec blindly wraps his fingers around the mug. “I didn’t realize.”

Magnus’s heart pounds in his throat. His ears are ringing again. He’d been wondering when that’d start back up. “I know. Go on. Drink. You don’t want to catch cold.”

“It’s _summer_.” His voice breaks over it, inexplicably.

Magnus’s bruised heart pangs. “I know. Just drink something. Please.”

Alec obediently takes a few sips from his mug. As he lowers it again, his eyes snap up to Magnus. “Are you cold?”

Is he? Not superficially. It goes deeper than that, a freezing of the bones. Organs ticking to a stop. “No. I’m alright.”

Alec’s gaze on him sharpens. “You don’t have to pretend.”

Doesn’t he? “Neither do you.”

At that, Alec looks away, jaw working.

Magnus places his own mug down, sidles around the island until he can lean against the counter beside him. He reaches out slowly to wrap a hand around Alec’s wrist.

“Darling,” he says, quiet, “please. Say something.”

“What do you mean?” Alec protests, even quieter. “I’m talking to you.”

“No,” Magnus says, “you aren’t.”

He waits, but Alec stays looking away, jaw locked. Magnus sighs and wraps him in a hug, pulling him in close. Alec’s hand comes up automatically to cup the back of his head.

The loft is far too quiet. Magnus craves noise. All he can hear is the dripping of the tap, the breeze drifting in, all these mundane sounds, unchanged. He wants to scream to fill the quiet, but he’s all out of screams for now.

Alec’s breath comes quick and harsh, cutting the silence. Magnus can feel him shaking.

“It’s okay,” Magnus says into his chest. “It’s okay.”

*

This time, it’s Magnus who finds Alec in Pandemonium. Alec sees him approach out of the corner of his eye, sees him come to a stop and silently observe where Alec is well on his way to punching through a wall. He doesn’t interfere.

“There are plenty of perfectly good walls at home, you know,” he finally says. And then, when Alec doesn’t respond—“I didn’t expect I would actually find you here, of all places.”

Alec delivers one final blow to the wall and then lets his hands drop, panting. “It’s, you know, it’s not…”

Magnus nods sagely. _It’s a relic of an older time_ , his nod seems to agree.

“And someone would’ve found me at the Institute,” Alec adds. He finally turns to look at Magnus.

Magnus looks remarkably put together, all things considered. He’s wearing one of his crisp outfits for the first time in days, his hair and makeup done. His hands seem steady.

“How are you _here?_ ” Alec demands. “And not—” _suffocating. A mess. Curled up on the floor._ “Aren’t you—” Alec swallows “—aren’t you _devastated_?”

It’s a completely unfair, cruel thing to say, and Alec regrets it immediately, but Magnus merely inclines his head, looking thoughtful and sad. “I am… merely trying to do what I can.”

“Which is what?”

“Taking care of those left behind. As are you.”

Alec looks away. “Not really.”

“Yes, really.” Magnus takes Alec’s abused hand and pulls it to his chest. “Did you or did you not talk me down from a panic attack the past three nights in a row?”

“It’s not—” Alec starts, but Magnus gives him a look, so he lets it drop. _But you_ deserve _that_ , he wants to protest.

“And yet,” Magnus continues, “you did not feel you could come to me.” He doesn’t sound angry about it. Sad, maybe.

“I don’t need your _help_ ,” Alec bites, and then hates himself for it.

Magnus watches him. He takes Alec’s hand in both of his own and starts ghosting magic over it, slowly healing the damage. “You do, I think.”

Alec yanks his hand away. “Magnus, what do you _want_?”

Magnus’s gaze is glamoured but still piercing. He looks terribly sad, gutted, though not by Alec’s words. “You still haven’t cried, my darling.”

Alec stares at him. “I don’t need—”

“You do,” Magnus interrupts. “I don’t say that as someone with some didactic view of how all people should grieve, I say it as your husband, who knows you. You do.”

Before Alec can move away, Magnus grabs a hold of his wrist, almost as if he had anticipated the action.

“Magnus, let me _go_ —”

“Would you let me go?” Magnus demands.

And—Alec wouldn’t, is the thing. But he also _can’t be here right now._ Magnus has always been a haven for him. But he can’t put more weight on Magnus’s shoulders when Magnus is bowing under the pressure that’s already there.

Someone needs to be strong for Magnus. So few people have ever been strong for Magnus.

“Magnus, I can’t—”

“You can.” Magnus’s voice is softer now, quiet even in the yawning silence of the empty club. “You can. It’s your grief, too.”

Maybe it is, but Alec doesn’t know how to own it. He doesn’t think he’s ever even approached something this immense before. Not even when he thought he’d lost Magnus to Edom. Not even when he lost Izzy.

It’s too big, he can’t— can’t see the edges of it.

Magnus wraps his hands around Alec’s and pulls him to the floor. “Come on, sit down with me.” Alec pushes himself up against the wall, feeling like he might keel over, and Magnus continues, running his thumbs over Alec’s hands, “Take your time. Breathe, love. Just stop. It’s okay.”

“Stop _what?_ ”

“Everything.” The overhead lights catch in Magnus’s eyes, he looks very solemn. It’s rare for Magnus to be so solemn these days. “There’s nothing else that requires your attention. Just this.”

“Magnus—”

“Shhhh. I’m here. Just hold my hands and breathe, it’s alright.”

Alec _is_ breathing. He’s sure he must be breathing.

“Magnus—"

“Shhh.” Magnus keeps stroking his hands. He’s healed them completely, and now Alec’s not sure he can feel them at all. “Shh.”

Magnus’s quiet voice breaks something in Alec. The next time he says his name, his voice cracks.

_“Magnus—”_

Magnus reaches up to touch his face, and Alec feels it as strongly as the first time Magnus ever touched him—that same fragile and desperate want, twisted now from a flame that lights under his ribs to a pained ember in danger of suffocating. Alec wants to look away from him, but Magnus won’t let him—he drops his glamour even though it clearly pains him to do so, holds Alec’s gaze to his.

“You have seen,” he starts, very slowly, “me spiraling apart, sitting right here. And yet, I got back up. You helped me back up.” He strokes a thumb over Alec’s cheek. “You can do it, too. It’s okay. It’s allowed.”

A tear slips down Alec’s cheek, and he’s not even sure if it’s for the thought of Magnus breaking apart, or for himself.

“It’s not,” he manages to say, because he’s never known how to do this, doesn’t know to surrender under that much weight, surrendering has always meant death, and this is—

But he’s already crying.

“It is,” Magnus insists, soft. And tears are running down Alec’s cheeks now, he doesn’t know how to stop them, he’s never known—Magnus pulls him into his chest, and Alec takes in a shuddering breath, pressing his face into Magnus’s shoulder.

“Oh, my darling.” Magnus cradles Alec’s head, rocking him a little as he cries. “Please stop trying to be strong for me.”

“But you need—”

“I have plenty of people being strong for me. That’s not your job right now. I want—” now Magnus’s own voice breaks—“I want you to grieve _with_ me.”

_“How?”_ Magnus must know, right? He must know how to shrink this planetary weight above them into something manageable. He has more experience with this. Alec hates that, but it’s a fact all the same. “How, Magnus? I don’t know—”

Magnus sighs. “There’s no answer to that, my love. Just—take my hand.”

And Alec does, letting Magnus thread their fingers together and hold him, and he presses his face further into Magnus’s shoulder, feeling himself tremble, feeling himself melt into Magnus’s arms. Magnus is steady against him even though his breath shakes, even though his fingers dig into Alec’s hair.

“That’s it,” Magnus says. His voice is trembling. Alec clutches him tighter, almost painfully so, and he sighs. “There you are.”

And Alec still doesn’t know how to support him when he himself can barely stand, but he thinks, as his chest splits open and he lets himself start to sob, as Magnus holds him, that just being here might be enough. 

*

“You aren’t wearing your makeup.”

Magnus looks up to find Alec watching him from where he’s sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee cradled between his fingers. Magnus sighs and walks over to him.

“No, I’m not.”

Alec’s brow creases. He looks tired, and Magnus isn’t sure he’s actually slept at all, but as long as he’s here, sitting peacefully in the loft, Magnus figures that’s a battle for later. “You feeling okay?”

Magnus leans against the table. There’s something grounding in the hard jut of the wood into his hip. “Better, actually. Just a little.”

“But you’re…” Alec gestures to Magnus’s attire which is composed of old and formless loungewear, his hair falling messily over his forehead. “If makeup makes you feel better, then you should wear it.”

His gaze slants away, and Magnus realizes he’s thinking of the moment he’d assumed Magnus’s put-together outfit meant he actually _felt_ put-together. If only that were true.

“It makes me feel like I’m pretending,” Magnus says. “I don’t want to pretend. Not with you.”

His hands are flexing involuntarily against his thighs, fingers tangling in the fabric of his pants. Alec reaches out and takes them. Magnus looks down at their joined hands. The only one of his rings he’s wearing is his wedding ring, and it glints in the pale morning light.

“You got rid of all the alcohol in the house,” Alec says.

“For now.”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t helping.”

Magnus shakes his head.

Alec looks up at him. “Does anything?” He doesn’t seem very hopeful about the answer.

Magnus steps closer to stand between his legs. He brings Alec’s hands to his lips and kisses them, one, then the other. “You do.”

Alec smiles at that—just a little, but it’s the first hint of life Magnus has seen from either of them in days, and he revels in it.

Alec tugs him down to sit on his lap, and Magnus instinctively leans in to tuck his face into Alec’s neck, breathing him in, soaking in the sun-warmed heat of him. Alec’s arms come up to wrap around him.

“That first night,” Alec starts slowly, and Magnus stiffens. “I think, any other time, it would’ve terrified me, what you said.”

Magnus swallows. “What did I say?” He’s blocked most of that twenty-four hour span out of his memory already, to be honest. It’s too crushing to think about.

“‘There’s no after,’” Alec quotes.

Magnus almost wants to protest that statement, but doesn’t. Instead he asks, “Why didn’t it scare you?”

“Because you were right.”

“Alexander—”

“No, you were. There isn’t an after. But maybe—” he articulates very carefully, feeling his way through the words, “there’s… _forward_.”

“Yes.” Magnus tightens his grip around his husband’s neck, feeling tears come to his eyes again and fall into the almost nonexistent space between them. The pressure in his chest finally eases, just enough for him to take a full breath. _“Yes.”_

**Author's Note:**

> kinda wanted to explore like, how it might be hard for alec to let himself grieve because he just defaults to taking care of other people. with the additional challenge of writing about a character's death without ever mentioning it directly 
> 
> title refers to the event horizon of a black hole, the point at which light can no longer escape. but also the more mundane horizon that the sun rises over 
> 
> [tumblr](https://cuubism.tumblr.com) :)


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